In the gray twilight of a dreary morn,
A prisoner stood, defenceless and forlorn,
While, to a Roman judge, with boisterous breath,
His fierce accusers clamored for His death.
It was the Christ, rejected and abused;
The King of kings, his sovereign claim refused;
The Son of God, abandoned and betrayed,
An outcast, in the world which he had made.
It was his chosen people whose demand
That timid judge was powerless to withstand;
And, while their baseless charges he denied,
He gave their victim to be crucified.
His chosen people! those he loved and blest;
Whose little ones he folded to his breast;
Who cried more fiercely, as unmoved he stood,
"On us, and on our children, be his blood!"
Oh, Holy Savior! may thy grace reverse
The dreadful import of that reckless curse;
And, on their children, thy atonement prove
"The blood of sprinkling," through Redeeming
Love!
—Francis De Haes Fanvier.